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I contemplated writing about my experience last week….not wanting to go there, but desperately wanting to let it out…I created this blog with the intention of quieting the voices in my head. To get the hamster off the wheel….In the end, I decided to go with what my spirit was craving. A release of emotion…so here it goes.

Last week was the absolute hardest week I’ve had to endure to date. It started Sunday night. My cell rings, I glance down to see it is my best friend, aka sister, H. I smile, and say “Well hello!”….what I hear back leaves me spinning.

H’s sister, happens to have the same name as I do. Hope. She says, “Hope, it’s Hope.”…I feel confusion rush to my face, my eyebrows squish down around my nose…Did I just hear that right? I glance back at my caller ID….It clearly says, H. What the hell is going on, I think…Oh please God…please……Don’t let anything happened to H. My heart races, it is now in my throat as I wait for an answer. I can feel my throat pulsing…She pauses. By now I’m sure something is wrong…..I want to scream…tell me damn it!…tell me what is wrong!….Then through her tears I hear her words.

I want to vomit….I want to un-hear….I cry out…”Oh my God….Oh my God….I don’t understand…Oh my God”….My husband overhears my cries. He bounds down the stairs two at time, rushing into the kitchen. I’m bent over, hand to my head, tears in my eyes…I see him searching my face for answers…I cover the phone barely able to whisper what I’ve just heard. He sinks…Slumps against the counter….

My H has lost the love of her life….Her husband, the father of her 4 children, has passed…and the world has stopped.

Every second of what follows is heart wrenching. I fly to Indiana to be by H’s side; to help fill in the gaps where I can. Yet I’m lost. I don’t know where to start, what to do, what to say….

I.feel.utterly.powerless.

Nothing I say, nothing I can do, will turn back the clock to happier days….I glance around to the family and friends rallied to support H and the children. She has a full house. We are strangers, connected only by the love we share for the family….We all have the same look…With tears and mourning in our eyes, we nod with the acceptance that we are all here for the same reason…We tread lightly around each other, carefully acknowledging that we are ill equipped to navigate this bleak road of heartbreak and loss. When our eyes meet, there is unspoken realization that it will take all of us… ALL of our love, to pull them through.

By mid-week, I realized my vocabulary, the English language in general, simply does not have words that can express the sorrow in this house. H’s sobs are from the pit of her being. They are heavy, deep, uncontrolled. I listen sympathetically. We hug gently. Patting her knee…knowing that we are helpless and hating that we are. We can only be present…chest deep, wading through the muddy anguish with her and the children.

I want to medicate H and put her in a box for 10 years…only taking her out when the pain has stopped and the coast is clear. But I know this pain will be part of the healing process….

I know she has to walk through this…and so I offer to hold her hand.

Please keep H’s family in your prayers.

**Rest in peace Mark. You were a good husband, awesome daddy and a hard working provider. A genuine man with a broad smile, and a chuckle when you least expected it. I hope when you look down from heaven you see all of the love. May your angel wings be big, bright and beautiful. **